Flora: Paintings by Janet Alling June 19, 2010

Janet Alling believes it was her destiny to paint plants and flowers. For over 40 years she has chipped away at traditional hierarchies of subject matter by giving botanicals the same prominence and credibility as figure paintings and landscapes. This exhibition of exquisite floral paintings reaches back to the 1960s and follows Alling's development through the early 2000s as she engages with formal visual ideas, color, light, composition, scale and the phenomena of the natural world. The selected works include examples of Alling's early, tentative but carefully observed watercolors of single red roses; voluptuous large scale portrayals of begonias, zinnias and irises; and emotive, highly charged tulip paintings from her 2004 series, The Seven Deadly Sins. Born and raised in New York City, Alling studied at the Yale School of Art during the 1960s when Abstract Expressionism was king. She now lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island. Publication of Alling's new book, Flora: Paintings by Janet Alling, coincides with the exhibition and will be available for sale at the Museum. The Museum hosts a reception for its summer exhibitions on Friday, June 18, 5 - 7 pm. Free for Newport Art Museum members, $10 for non-members.